Free Republic

Per Jim Robinson: “Broadly stated, the goals of this site are to further conservatism, expose political corruption, and recover a truly constitutional form of government.”

So, given that, why exactly do you post your “songs” at the site? Especially instrumentals like this one?

I have a personal request to freepers. Please do not post these animal abuse stories on Free Republic. One of the many reasons I stopped reading Drudge is that he frequently lists these stories.

People do awful things. We all know this. Do we really need to be reminded of it? What is the “news” value of reading about this kind of depravity. How are we elevated or educated as a community by reading about this?

It seriously hurts my heart every time I see these kinds of headlines (which frankly, I don't ever remember seeing before on FR).

Thank you.

“Choose Me” sung by wonderful country songwriter Tim Johnson (who died a few years ago tragically in his 50s).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sutC-4j3nRE

You do not need to dress up to get in to Hermes Bar at Antoines. My wife and I lived in the Quarter for some 20 years and routinely bopped in there for drinks and dinner. Often we were in jeans and t-short (at east I was).

I’m a New Orleanian. Also, was a waiter many moons ago at Commander’s Palace. My picks in order: Antoine’s, Galatoire’s, Arnaud’s. They are all the real deal in haute NOLA cuisine.

As reservations this time a year can be tough, be advised that you can stroll into the bar at Antoine’s (called the Herme’s Bar) or upstairs bar at Arnaud’s and eat in both places without a reservation—same menu as the restaurants.

At Antoine’s, they have a salad called the “Numa” salad named after a famous waiter there (he was my waiter for many years—and both Antoine’s and Galatoire’s have a “waiter” system where if you are a local, you book directly by phone with your waiter), anyway, Numa’s salad is pretty awesome—just a greens salad, but with artichoke hearts, hearts of palm and a some kind of light secret vinaigrette dressing, and it’s wonderful.

Center cut filet great at Antoine’s, trout almandine fab at both Antoine’s and Arnaud’s. Antoine’s has a dish called “Truite Au Vin Blanc” which is a casserole fish dish and it’s killer as is the Pompano en Papillote. Oyster’s Rock and Oyster’s Foch also wonderful at Antoine’s. At Arnaud’s, the crabmeat ravigotte is to die for and their coffee, OMG. Great.

Arnaud’s famous for Shrimp Arnaud. Definitely order that if you go there.

If you are into bloody mary’s, Antoine’s makes a great one over crushed ice. Their Sazeracs are fine too—it’s a rye whisky and absinthe cocktail.

Really don’t think you can go wrong at any of these places. If you are into deserts, have the Baked Alaska at Antoine’s. Perfect for a family desert.

Any golfers out there...what do you think?

Now, if Trump would just give us back our incandescent lightbulbs!!

And require cable and streaming “skinny” bundle providers to sell us stations on an a la carte basis!...

This reporter (Ali Watkins) apparently started whoring herself out when she was a senior in college to a mid-fifties, no-name Washington DC bureaucrat (James Wolfe).

How is this any different than a “honey pot” spy operation?

Probably a course in J-School these days—”How to Screw your way to the top”.

Not a nice girl!

Suggest you replace it with a single dual channel Crown. Be about the same price as the two amps you are replacing and way better. (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01AD1R4A4?psc=1_).

As a professional musician, I appreciate that Crown stuff is the royalty of live sound power amps. Bulletproof. I have one hooked up to my home Bose stereo speakers and it’s flawless.

BTW, Behringer is not crap. I have had many pieces of their equipment over the years (headphone distribution amps, line mixers, small mini-mixers, etc.), and they work fine. Are they as good as the more expensive stuff they copy? No, but they are a great value and generally last a long time.

Why not just arrest, arraign, try, and convict her...

1907. Title 8, U.S.C. 1324(a) Offenses

Title 8, U.S.C. § 1324(a) defines several distinct offenses related to aliens...

“Harboring — Subsection 1324(a)(1)(A)(iii) makes it an offense for any person who — knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that an alien has come to, entered, or remains in the United States in violation of law, conceals harbors, or shields from detection, or attempts to conceal, harbor, or shield from detection, such alien in any place, including any building or any means of transportation.

Encouraging/Inducing — Subsection 1324(a)(1)(A)(iv) makes it an offense for any person who — encourages or induces an alien to come to, enter, or reside in the United States, knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that such coming to, entry, or residence is or will be in violation of law.

Conspiracy/Aiding or Abetting — Subsection 1324(a)(1)(A)(v) expressly makes it an offense to engage in a conspiracy to commit or aid or abet the commission of the foregoing offenses.”

MSM just doesn’t get it. They are the swamp. If MSM did their jobs honestly, ethically, and professionally, no way huge wrongs would have happened like Clinton and BO becoming President or small wrongs like the current contretemps between John Lewis and DJT.

Let’s just hope DJT and team realize the profound clear and present danger posed by the MSM and take it apart piece by piece, brick by brick, talking head by talking head. Drain that swamp and you return the news media to the American people and out of the hands of the venal left that would tear down everything that is this great country.

I have been a member and supporter of FreeRepublic for years and only posted and responded to posts occasionally, but this thread got my attention because I am a professional songwriter sort of specializing in patriotic songs. I co-wrote both of the songs listed below. "God & Guns" was originally recorded by Lynyrd Skynyrd (and in fact was the title of their 2009 album and tours as well). Hanks Williams, Jr. has since also recorded the song. It's on his new album "It's About Time" released early 2016.

Hank also recorded my song "Red, White & Pink Slip Blues" in 2008 and it was the first single released to radio and CMT off his "127 Rose Avenue"album. The song was also just released again on his brand new "A Country Boy Can Survive" album available exclusively at Walmart. My song is on Disc 3, the "Hits" disc.

- God & Guns - Skynyrd version (Click Here.)

- God & Guns - Hank version (Click Here.)

- Red, White & Pink Slip Blues - Hank version (Click Here.)

If I Were Donald Trump, my opening statement in the debate would be...

"Tonight’s debate is not a debate and you all know it. By “you,” I mean, those watching this, both political parties, the media, and of course me and my team.

Rather, this is to be an exercise in trashing me and my candidacy. The questions will be designed to prove to you that I am not worthy to be your president. Both the moderator and my opponent have no doubt spent weeks trying to think up questions to trip me up like Gary Johnson was recently tripped up by a question about Aleppo and other ways they can assassinate my character and impugn my intentions.

Moreover, virtually the whole world watching knows the truly unworthy candidate in this race is my opponent. She has been front and center in scandals her entire political life: Whitewater, cattle futures, bimbo eruptions, Travelgate, Rose law firm billing records, Benghazi, private home brew servers and classified emails, pay to play and the Clinton Foundation, etc. Most recently, we found out five of her aids have been granted immunity. I do not need to tell you: non-criminals do not need immunity.

So, this is not a debate and is not intended to be fair and accordingly, I refuse to play along. Here’s what I plan to do. I am telling you the audience and both the moderator and my opponent; this debate is 90 minutes long and I should have about half of that to speak to you about what I plan to do if you elect me your president. No matter what I am asked or what my opponent says, I am going to pretty much ignore them and simply use my time to lay out my vision for America. I thank you for taking some of your valuable time tonight to listen to my message."

Audacity is an amazing tool, especially for free. While I do not use it for “serious” recording projects (I use Pro Tools), I use it extensively in the songwriting process. It’s like my go-to “tape recorder” during the writing process. As the chords and melody are emerging, I record it all with Audacity. I do this because Audacity is fast to open and once open, just ready to go. Hit record and it starts (unlike Garage Band where you have to create tracks and make other settings before you can actually start recording).

The other thing it is amazing for is in the mastering process. When I have all of my mixes, I put them in DDP Creator to measure relative loudness. Then I drop all of the tracks into Audacity and adjust loudness with my various compression and limiting plugins (all of them that I have bought for Pro Tools also show up in and work in Audacity).

I also usually use Audacity to trim/fade ends in order to get the transition between tracks sounding right. Now here’s the really cool part: Audacity then lets you export multiple tracks in one operation. So, all of the modified audio gets exported with one command, rather than 10, 12, 14 (or however many tracks on the album) individual export operations. That’s a real time saver!

Finally, Audacity has a command that allows you to detect digital peaking in tracks by simply choosing it. Then visible red lines show up on the track forms. Sometimes, even though I can barely hear areas of digital peaking—they are there and this process really helps identify them.

You say Audacity has a steep learning curve and I kinda disagree. I guess if you use it as a substitute for Pro Tools, or Logic, of Digital Performer. Traction, etc., that may be true, but it is usable as a simple recording tool without much work. Moreover, I was an advanced computer user when I first got into recording almost 20 years ago and it took me three months with Digital Performer (my first “DAW”) before I could even begin to record. Now that’s a steep learning curve!! And then, after 10 years experience with “DP,” it took me three years to get comfortable with wonky Pro Tools. So, comparatively, Audacity’s a breeze!

And I forgot to add:

Come 2014, millions of sick Americans that have lost their insurance will be struggling to pay for and in many cases will no longer be able to pay for prescription drugs and will start getting very sick and even dying. Treatments like dialysis, radiation therapy, etc. will be unaffordable without insurance and will cease for many.

In short, people will start dying due to ACA. Forget the “death panels.” ACA is itself one big death panel.

What the MSM is not telling us about ACA:

• Millions of Americans will try to log on to govt. website, or call, or show up in person to sign-up for ACA and will not be able to. (ACA websites will NEVER WORK. November target date for fixing Healthcare.gov is a pipe dream which every professional web designer already knows. You don't fix 5 million lines of incompetently written code in a month. You can't hardly test a website of this magnitude in six months.) • Millions of people will be thrown off their insurance plans by Dec. 31. • Millions will contact insurance companies directly and will find out the rates are double or triple what they were paying. • As you can only get subsidies by signing up directly through govt. "exchanges" (not directly with insurance companies)... • On Jan. 1, 2014, millions more Americans will have NO HEALTH INSURANCE. • Millions more sick and injured people will start showing up at hospitals in 2014 with no insurance and get served for free. • Nation's hospitals will start going broke from non-payment by millions more sick and injured uninsured Americans. • Nation's insurance companies will start going broke because rates for those with preexisting conditions who were supposed to be subsidized by the young and healthy will not be subsidized because the young and healthy will not be able to sign up via exchanges and won't sign up directly with insurance companies when they get the sticker shock of what coverage will cost.

Too bad the fool (Milbank) doesn’t know the difference between “affect” and “effect.” The former is assuredly what he means.

“Effect, affect. Effect is a noun meaning “result”; affect is a verb meaning “influence.”” Source: Strunk - http://home.ccil.org/~cowan/style-revised.html#effect

And to think his idiot editor let this through as well!

Why write a new tune. Just recycle one from the Carter era: “Welfare Cadillac” by country singer-songwriter Guy Drake. Tell me these immortal words don’t fit today!!

(Google Guy and this song and find the Youtube video of Guy singing the tune at the Grand Ol’ Opry. Classic!!)

You know I’ve never worked much in fact I’ve been poor all my life
I guess all I really own is ten kids and a wife
This house I live in is mine but it’s really a shack
But I’ve always managed somehow to drive me a brand new Cadillac

The backdoor steps they done fell plumb down
The front screen door’s off and laying somewhere out there on the ground
The wind just now whooped up another piece of that tar roofing off the back
I sure hope it don’t skin up that new Cadillac

The front porch posts fell loose at the bottom
It don’t make no sense to fix ‘em cause that floor’s just too darn rotten
In the winter sometimes we have snow blowing through the cracks
If it gets too bad we all just pile up and sleep out there in that new Cadillac

I know the place ain’t much but I sure don’t pay no rent
And I get a check the first of every month from this here Federal Government
Every Wednesday I get the commodities sometime four or five sacks
I always Pick ‘em up down at the welfare office driving that new Cadillac

Some folks say I’m crazy and I’ve even been called a fool
But my kids get free books and all them there free lunches at school
But we get beer and crackfood and man they give us flour by the sack
Course them welfare checks they meet the payments on this new Cadillac

Now the way that I see it these other folks are the fools
They’re working and paying taxes just to send my younguns to school
The Salvation Army cuts their hair and gives them clothes to weear on their backs
So we can dress up and ride along and show off this new Cadillac

But things are still gonna get better yet at least that’s what I understand
They tell me this new President done put in a whole new powerty plan
He’s gonna send us poor folks money we’re gonna get it out there in stacks
In fact my wife’s already shopping around for her new Cadillac

Bill calls O an amateur. O pushes back by getting media sycophants to write an article saying Bill throws bad parties. Ooooh, git’em O!!

Great follow-up questions. Keep ‘em coming!!